Windows 98 problem

My friend is having a problem with his computer (a dell with windows 98). It started when he was promted to upgrade windows 98 on the interent, he did it and afterwards he couldn't get back into his computer except through safe mode. I helped do a full restore of his computer, which Dell told him to do, but now there are at least 2 problems that I am aware of, one is that for his color settings he only has the option of 2 colors or 16 colors (his monitor is a Dell Trinitron if that could be part of the cause) and the other is with his modem, the computer doesn't decect the modem also when you let the computer detect new devices through add hardware it shows all of the com ports are installed but have a problem. Does anyone know what is causing these problems? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Has he changed the video card and/or modem from what originally came in the system?
I'm pretty sure this problem is not hardware relate(if it is then it is really bad timing) I think it will be somehow related to the Restoration of the original configuration. Any changes he made to hardware or settings after he got the system will now be set back the way they were when he got it. Any changes he made in the original setup may be causing conflicts or he may be using incorrect drivers. He needs to check to make sure he is using the correct drivers for the modem and video card.

He hasn't changed the video card or modem, which is why I can't figure out what's going wrong, because after the restore it should just work like computer did when it was new beause all the setting are reset right? If it is hardware related do you know what could be?

Can you go to dell's site and download new drivers for the modem and video? (I know you can't on his computer because of the modem issue, but maybe you can get them for him).
Have you tried restoring again? If you just restored I don't imagine he will lose much other than time if you try it again and you may just solve the problem. I've known things to not install properly once, but after trying again they work fine. Things can be espically wierd like that on 9x systems.

all the dell computers I have seen that came with win 98 had a 98 disk and then a resource disk with the drivers for the inf files ,video card drivers etc. did you install the needed items from the resource disk?

all the symtoms you are describing are typical of the drivers for those devices not being installed. THEY ARE NOT on the Win 98 disk. they are on the dell resource disk.

I'll either try to get the drivers on Dell or check to see if he has that disk. I just assumed they would return with restore, guess I was wrong though. I did try two restores though and it did not work. Thank a lot for the sugesstions.

Thanks for help I got the display adaptor and modem working. But, there are still two things the computer recognizes are there but doesnt have drivers for, when you click add hardware the two entries are:

1)PCI input controller, I dont have a clue what this is, could anyone help me with that?

2)PCI Multimedia Audio Device, I'm fairly sure this is the Sound Card right(the sound isnt working on the computer)? but the problem I have is when I use his rescource disk to install the driver I cant figure out how to do it through the device manager, but you can run a setup program from windows explorer to install the driver but computer stops responding at 18 percent complete every time (could that be his disk or is something else wrong, or is there a way to install it through the device manager?) Thanks in advance for your help.

In order to install the driver you can try clicking on the "PCI Multimedia Audio Device" to highlight it, from the "Action menu", click on update driver. Upon clicking on "update driver", a menu will appear requesting you to locate the source of the drivers.